The present invention relates to a method for treating material normally eaten by free roaming ruminant animals or the area surrounding such material to discourage such ruminants, such as members of the deer family, from browsing the edible material.
In those agricultural industries which grow crops such as timber or food in regions adjacent to or within areas having a high ruminant animal population, the yearly loss of usable plant life to browsing or grazing by ruminants reaches staggering proportions. It has been estimated that the irreversible loss of timber resulting from ruminant browsing, either by stunting of growth or entirely killing trees, exceeds many millions of dollars per year. This loss is caused primarily by members of the deer family which browse on timber producing trees, such as Douglas fir seedlings, during the late fall and winter seasons and selectively browse on the current growth of timber producing trees in the spring and early summer seasons. The timber industry has been seeking a way to prevent such browsing by ruminants, especially members of the deer family. A variety of compositions have been tried as ruminant repellents, but only a few have met with relative success.
Among those materials which have been effectively used as ruminant repellents are the putrefied product of a mixture of egg and a lipolytic enzyme. A specific composition which has been found to be an effective repellent is oleic acid. This repellent composition and a few others can be derived from the putrefaction product of egg and a lipolytic enzyme. Although these repellent compositions are effective, the putrefaction process is rather expensive and is extremely obnoxious to those who must work with it, meets with some ecological objection, and also produces some materials which may be phytotoxic, mammalian toxic, or otherwise harmful to the ecosystem. A continuing search for effective less phytotoxic, easier-to-handle ruminant repellents has culminated in the present invention.
It is a broad object of the present invention to provide a ruminant repellent which alone or in combination with other compositions will effectively discourage browsing by ruminants of edible materials such as trees. Further objects of the present invention are to provide an inexpensive, readily available ruminant repellent, to provide a ruminant repellent which can easily be applied to edible material, to provide a repellent which is compatible with the forest ecosystem and especially which has little or no phytotoxicity or mammalian toxicity.
Other more specific objects of the present invention are to provide a ruminant repellent composition which is chemically stable in storage for long periods of time and to provide a repellent composition which can be shipped in commerce and can be stored for future use without extraordinary precautions such as special packaging, special formulation requirements, or specific handling procedures. Further objects are to provide a concentrated repellent composition meeting the foregoing requirements, while being easily dilutable with common solvents for various uses and methods of application, such as hand or aerial application to trees, and which can be combined with other repellents for insects and non-ruminant animals.